Major Changes to Modeler and Renderer Cores add Innovative Technologies to Emmy®-winning 3D Application in 8.2 Update

San Antonio, Texas -- January 18, 2005 -- NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, today announced the release of a major feature update, version 8.2, for LightWave 3D®. The update includes major changes to the renderer core to implement new technologies for anti-aliasing, as well as new options for image reconstruction filters that can be applied to the final image to offer further control and enhancement of render output. The new LightWave® Team has also implemented a completely redesigned UV engine in the geometry core, which affects both Modeler and Layout, to make creating and editing UV maps easier and more powerful.

"We're extremely pleased to bring this suite of enhancements to our LightWave user community," said Dr. Andrew Cross, PhD, senior vice president of engineering for NewTek. "The exciting new technologies that we've developed for anti-aliasing and the addition of reconstruction filters to our render core continue our tradition of innovation in this area. LightWave's new solutions for UV mapping subdivision surfaces offer flexibility and power not found in any other 3D application, as well. Our team is committed to developing leading edge technologies, and will be building on these to bring our users more power and more value with every new release of this award-winning, industry-standard production tool."

LightWave 8.2 New Features:

Completely Redesigned UV Mapping Engine:

• New UV Map Interpolation modes for Subpatch objects
• New UV tear-off function to eliminate the need to unweld points for most UV edit functions
• Multi-selection of UV Maps for editing interpolation mode, etc.
• User-selectable wireframe colours for UV Maps

Render Core Improvements:

• New Pixel Lattice Deformation anti-aliasing technologies
• Implementation of state-of-the-art Reconstruction Filters
  - Box, Gaussian, Mitchell, Lanczos

• New "Mosaic" render mode for VIPER Preview system

IK Booster System Improvements:

• IK Booster Ghost Mode — user selectable "onion skin" feature
• New and improved functions for loading, saving, copying motion data among hierarchies
• New DopeTrack functions to support IK Booster

SDK Improvements

• 22 new functions and enhancements that boost the power of third parties to develop new LightWave tools and access LightWave's powerful core.

"I love the way the new UV tools, particularly the 'Free Move' tear-off mode, improve my workflow for game production," said Pancho Eekels, Lead Designer for Digital Extremes. "The new features in 8.2 are major enhancements to the product that benefit LightWave users by speeding up the way they work in modelling, texturing and animating, and giving them better results faster at render time. NewTek is clearly committed to giving customers value beyond their expectations."

Pricing and Availability

LightWave [8] for Windows and Macintosh is available from NewTek Europe and its agreed resellers at a recommended retail price of 1,295€+VAT/ UK RRP £899+VAT . All purchases of new licences include Image Modeler 4 from RealViz (worth 1,200€/ £840 if bought separately) while stocks last. Existing LightWave users can upgrade to version [8] for 295€+VAT/ UK RRP: £199+VAT.

The 8.2 update is available to all registered LightWave 3D [8] owners from
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/support/download.html as a free download.

To find your nearest reseller, visit
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/purchase/resellers.html.

For more information on our products visit
http://www.newtek-europe.com
or call NewTek Europe on +33 557 262 262.

About NewTek and NewTek Europe.

Newtek Europe is based near Bordeaux, in South West France and deals with Newtek product distribution, communication and technical maintenance for all customers around Europe, Russia, Africa and the Middle East.

With headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, NewTek, Inc. is a leading provider of full-featured video editing, animation and special effects tools including Video Toaster™ and LightWave 3D^®, winner of the 2003 Primetime Emmy^® Engineering Award.

NewTek launched the desktop video revolution in 1990 with the release of the legendary Video Toaster™. The company's products are used worldwide on projects ranging from home video to feature film.

Recent television and film projects using LightWave 3D^® include "I, Robot", Spiderman 2, The Manchurian Candidate, Exorcist: The Beginning, Garfield, Hellboy, Van Helsing, Triplets of Belleville, The Last Samurai, Torque, Children of Dune, Battlestar: Galactica, Firefly, Taken, Smallville, Star Trek: Enterprise, Matrix Reloaded, Collateral Damage, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Agent Cody Banks, Daredevil, Spy Kids II, Oscar^®-nominated Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Final Fantasy, Blackhawk Down.

Recent game titles include Doom III, Burnout 3, Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam for XBox, Age of Mythology, Civilization III, Dead to Rights, Baldur's Gate II, EverQuest and Escape From Monkey Island.

Information about LightWave 3D^®:
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/products/lightwave/index.html

LightWave 3D^® artists interviews:
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/community/lightwave/index.html

LightWave 3D^® Projects List:
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/products/lightwave/projects.html

--End--

- LightWave and LightWave 3D are registered trademarks of NewTek.
- VT[4], VT[4] Live, VT[4] Post, VT[3], VT[3] Live, VT[3] Post, VT[2], VT-Edit, Aura Video Paint, LightWave Express, VT-CG, VT-Vision VT-Scope, VT-DDR, Tool Shed, Tool Chest, SX-84, SX-8, RS-8, LScript, Digital Confusion, HyperVoxels, Endomorphs, Intelligentities, Motion Mixer, Morph Mixer, HardFX, SoftFX, ClothFX, MultiMeshes, Particle FX, P.A.V.L.O.V., Skelegons, SkyTracer, and Vmaps are trademarks of NewTek, Inc.
- All other products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Press contact:

Audrey-Jane Belin
Marketing & Communication Department
mail to: aj@newtek-europe.com

Newtek Europe
Europarc
17 avenue Léonard de Vinci
F-33600 PESSAC
Tel:+33 (0)5 57 262 262
Fax:+33 (0)5 57 262 261
www.newtek-europe.com